


But You're Keeping The Outfit, Right?

by ekwakthyla



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky too but maybe not right now bc Murder, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, Missing Scene, Steve Rogers Angst, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve Rogers-centric, Steve is more than the shield, Steve is sad, What else is new, and also his museum exhibit, but he's on a mission, canon compliant but with a lil more gay, eventually, he probably should have cried more in this fic, just a tad really, let's go spelunking into steve's battered psyche, this is way less flirty than the title suggests sorry, to steal his uniform and get bucky back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-04
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-09-14 15:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9187319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekwakthyla/pseuds/ekwakthyla
Summary: "He doesn't know you," Sam says to him as they stand outside Fury's hidden base, still reeling from their fight on the bridge."He will," Steve asserts with such confidence that Sam knows better than to argue. "Gear up, it's time."Sam clenches his jaw, his pinched expression matching Steve's. "You gonna wear that?""No," Steve turns to leave. "If you're gonna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform."~ This is the missing scene in The Winter Soldier in which Steve steals his old uniform back to spark Bucky’s memory and also suffers in his own museum exhibit bc memories and grade A certified Steve Rogers Angst™ ~





	

It's just after dawn by the time Steve finds himself climbing the steps of the Smithsonian. The air is moist with early morning dew and the city is quiet, waiting for the morning rush to begin. In a few hours the streets will be awash with lawyers and politicians and their interns, grabbing coffee on their way to work. But for now it’s just Steve and the city that still feels new to him.

The streets are wide, all the corners and crevices lit up by the rising sun. It’s nothing like Brooklyn was. Steve’s stomach clenches at the thought. His hands close into fists as he tries to stop the barrage of memories, made vibrant by the return of his friend. His best ( _only?_ ) friend whose pale eyes had betrayed no spark of recognition at all.

_Who the hell is Bucky?_

The words still echo in Steve’s head. That’s why he’s here, after all.

Breaking into the palace of Americana isn't something Steve ever though he'd be doing. He knows the shield he carries is a symbol of hope for the nation. But that’s all it is these days: a symbol. In the eyes of America, Captain America is inseparable from Steve Rogers, the man behind the shield. When he woke from the ice, Steve accepted that. He accepted what he’d become in his absence and soon he found himself believing it was true. He was only what the nation needed him to be.

But that resigned acceptance shattered when the mask was ripped from the Soldier’s face. The shock of that familiar jawline brought Steve back to himself. In that moment he was Steve Rogers again. Just a kid who wanted to be something bigger than he was. A kid with nothing but dreams and a life full of love.

Steve hadn’t really had a plan for breaking in, but instinct kicks in as soon as he spots a ground level window that might be even older than he is. After tiptoeing through the basement archives and finding the stairs, he slips past the snoozing night guard with ease. He pauses in the entrance to the exhibit. An entire exhibit in the greatest museum in the country, devoted to his own life.

Well, to Captain America’s life.

Sure, the name Steve Rogers is tacked onto the display in white letters only slightly bigger than the informational text but somehow it doesn’t feel right. Even his friends ( _coworkers?_ ) call him Cap more often than Steve.

There are only two people left on the planet that know him as Steve. Just Steve, before he was Cap. But both their memories are a little foggy. There’s nothing he can do to save Peggy. She is slipping away from him. But Bucky. Maybe there is something Steve could do to bring him back.

He wanders through the exhibit, taking his time in a way he couldn’t when it was full of people. He removes his baseball cap, his half-hearted attempt at disguise. The videos are off and the displays are dark, giving the exhibit an eerie sense of finality.

It’s all frozen, Steve thinks to himself. Like him, frozen in the ice, and still frozen in his thawed life.

The photos blown up on the walls leave out so much. 5’4” and 95 pounds, yes. But what about the asthma, the scoliosis, the cane he kept nearby at all times, the shameful things he had to do to afford the medicine? That’s not what people want to hear. Captain America was small, not sick, certainly not disabled.

Steve rips his eyes away from the image of his first body, suddenly ashamed of what was under those baggy clothes. He tries to avoid looking at his post-serum photo entirely, eyes just brushing the image before moving on. Even his naked chest is the property of America.

There’s a picture of the Howling Commandos that draws him in. They’re planning their next mission, crowded around a map laid flat on the table. Steve looks at himself, towering above the rest, eyebrows pinched and finger pointed at the next Hydra base. He looks like a leader. The photo could be from one of his movies, that’s how staged it looks.

Steve was a leader, sure, because he had to be. The Commandos were brothers. But Steve never quite managed to be as commanding as Bucky was. Bucky had gained the trust and friendship of Jones, Morita, Dernier, and Dugan first, before Steve had even crossed the Atlantic. There was no way Steve could ever supersede that. Nor did he want to. Bucky had a way with people. He had a hold on everyone without ever saying a word. So yes, Steve led them into battle, threw his unbreakable body in front of theirs, and gave them their next orders. But Bucky was the glue that held their ragtag group together.

Bucky.

Steve’s heart takes up residence in his throat again at the mere thought. Bucky is back.

No, Steve corrects himself, Bucky’s not back yet. The Winter Soldier is.

Steve whirls around, searching for Bucky’s picture. His eyes find the etching of Bucky’s frowning face on the thick glass panel. Steve remembers that frown, tinged with the orange of the sunset and the fog of his smoke out on the fire escape. Steve remembers peeking out the open window, spending moments just staring at his friend’s pensive expression before calling him in for dinner.

Steve searches for the video of the two of them laughing, Bucky’s eyes cast down and color rising to his cheeks on barely visible in the grayscale. He finds a black screen in its place, the video off for the night.

Of course, Steve chastises himself, it’s 6am, only hours before he has to take down S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra. This isn’t the time for a private tour of Steve’s tabloid history. Nor is it the time for spelunking into his fractured psyche, but Steve can never resist a good free-fall into suffering.

Steve shakes his head, trying to get back on task. Trying to escape the flood of memories. The sound of a door opening and closing, the rustle of a coat being thrown aside. The shift of a mattress and a sudden warmth seeping into his back. The vibration of a contented hum, stirring the hairs on the back of his neck.

Steve presses his hands into his eyes and doubles over. His stomach clenches and the ringing in his ears whites out his mind. He is silent, a groan frozen on his lips. He takes one quick breath. Then another. He straightens up and square his shoulders, allowing the mantle of Captain to return, to rest its weight on his back, eclipsing the cracked, heartsick Steve Rogers.

He heads toward the faceless mannequins that wear his friends’ uniforms. He faces his own, front and center and rips the helmet off the puppet. He doesn’t look up, refuses to see the mural of warped faces above. He unclasps the uniform and pulls it off gently, with precision.

Flashes of memories assault him: changing his mother’s clothes as dispassionately as possible as she’s dying from tuberculosis, Bucky doing the same for him the winter after when the pneumonia returned for another visit. Steve beats them back, just as he’s done every day for the past three years.

With the clothes folded in his arms, he backs away. His old uniform feels stiff. There’s dust on the shoulders from standing upright, frozen, for months. Steve clutches it to his chest like a lifeline. It is a lifeline, Bucky’s lifeline. If Steve could just get him to remember. Just trigger one single memory. Maybe by the star on his chest, maybe the stripes, the last things he saw before he fell. Anything familiar.

Steve returns to the basement and crawls out the same window he came through. There are more people on the streets now. Steve spent longer in his emotional labyrinth than he intended, as per usual if he’s being honest. He takes off, walking briskly back toward the base to change and face Bucky again, in the uniform he might remember.

* * *

* * *

 

In the end, Bucky does remember. But it’s not the uniform that sparks it. It’s not Captain America or his red, white, and blue. Those aren’t even the things he saw as he fell.

It’s the glint of light on Steve Rogers’ hair that does it. It’s the words, the promise Bucky made to a smaller man he loved, so many years ago. But mostly it’s the eyes. The fire, the pain, the desperation in Steve Rogers’ implausibly blue eyes. Those, Bucky remembers.

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I think about a lot so I wrote it out. I wish sad!Steve was more explicit in the films, but honestly that's what we're here for I guess. My first Stucky fic lmao bring it


End file.
